


only a signal shown and a distant voice

by whittler_of_words



Category: Hyper Light Drifter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 09:13:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12554116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whittler_of_words/pseuds/whittler_of_words
Summary: The first time Drifter and Guardian meet, a few minutes too late.





	only a signal shown and a distant voice

**Author's Note:**

> this is really short but a big thank you to keys and kep for inspiring this little oneshot, where the first time drifter meets guardian is when they're dying in the south. :DD

It’s something of a surprise when the corpse moves, just barely lifting its head.

“...you...” they rasp. Not much of a corpse after all, then.

Not yet.

They say nothing else. The earth underfoot is cracked and dry, except where their blood stains it, pink as yours. Pink as their helmet. Their cloak, already placed aside. Despite yourself, you can’t help but be a little morbidly amused; it’s hardly often that a drifter has the foresight to remove their gear when they know they’re about to die.

They’ve already stopped breathing in the few seconds it takes to approach. The ground is littered with hacked robot bits, a sword still lodged in the bulk of the carapace. You take it. The drifter’s bot lies damaged on the ground. Easily fixed, you think. You take it. 

The cloak is folded almost neatly where the drifter’s body kneels. You take it, and the sun illuminating the fibers of the hood makes you pause for a moment. Good quality. There’s a drifter way house back in the town, already stockpiled with a fair amount of resources, though you’ve yet to see anyone else enter the place; you think you’ll head there next, put these things somewhere you can find them again.

On the way back, a vendor stops you to ask if you’ve seen someone, a drifter who helped them a long time ago. “Wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Guardian,” they say, lounging back against the square’s fountain. Their relaxed pose clashes starkly with the concern lining their face. “But they don’t come around often, so I worry. Dressed all in pink and blue, you know, can’t miss ‘em.”

The cloak stashed under yours itches suddenly. “I’ll keep an eye out,” you lie. The vendor calls out in thanks as you retreat, and though you ignore them this time, their voice feels like it follows you to the way house door.

A little too late. To meet them (which hardly matters) or to save them (which would have, to them). But if you stopped to mourn over every picked-clean skeleton or every drifter whose gear you vultured along the way, you’d still be in the dregs, holding vigil for strangers. 

Any measure of grief could never change this world, so why bother.

You hang up the drifter’s things and, mind already elsewhere, buried far deeper in the earth than any grave, with the cure, with your Judgement, you make your way back outside, to move on once again.


End file.
